Water's Edge
by blackswans22
Summary: The forest always called her back to their secret place. Pan didn't want to keep her waiting.


The little cottage on the hill held strong despite its rickety exterior of weather thatched roof, rough stone facade overgrown with pillowy moss, and packed dirt path leading up to the ashen colored front door. The sun bleached the wood of the fence encircling it, the snow packed it further into the hillside with its frozen burden, the rain pelted it from all sides until the ceiling leaked in small droplets onto every available surface inside the small living space of a modest kitchen, two small bedrooms, and a sparsely furnished living area. The midday spring, just after the last winter storm, made for a lovely afternoon with wispy clouds and a light breeze that carried through the windows with its wildflower scented air.

A teenage girl shuddered in her seat then smiled with bright eyes as if answering a silent call to the outdoors. The wind beckoned like it did every day with an almost physical impatience and she didn't want to keep her waiting. She shoved what was left of her lunchtime bread and cheese into her mouth excitedly, lifted herself from the worn chair at the table and hurried to her room as her grandmother called for her to clean up her mess.

Pan was the precocious one in the family, much to the annoyance of her worrisome grandmother, and was known to wander off for the majority of the day, masquerading obliviousness to the hard work of the rest of the household, holding onto the innocence of being the youngest for as long as she could.

Sifting through her meager drawers, she threw a simple cotton dress over her slim frame and ran a brush through her hair, tamping it down with her most prized possession: an orange bandana gifted from her adoring grandfather Goku when she was a baby. She ran her fingers over the bright fabric with care. Grinning to herself, she hurriedly put on her shoes on her way out the door quickly. She only stalled her escape at the familiar irritated voice of the eldest matriarch commanding her to stop moving for once.

"Now, Pan, what have I told you about running through the house?" The creases on Grandmother Chi Chi's face were pulled together in a reproachful scowl. "You need to be more considerate." She added in admonishment before the girl could even open her mouth to respond.

"I'm sorry. I just wanted to go outside. I've been cooped up all day." Pan responded, bouncing on her heels somewhat while trying to give the best blameless grin she knew couldn't be resisted.

As expected, she watched the older woman cave under her childlike smile, a talent she had inherited from her carefree grandfather to get out of trouble. The matriarch ran her weathered hands through Pan's short, flat hair, tucking wayward strands behind her ear. "You know better. I want you to be careful. I know you go out every day but try to come back before sundown this time? The past few weeks, you've been gone longer and longer."

Guilt made its way up to her chest but was quickly quashed with a sudden burst of wind that came and went, a pressing reminder of her destination. She nodded with half-hearted truth. "I'll try. Sometimes I just get lost out there." She responded honestly.

"Well don't get too lost." Chi Chi teased, pinching Pan's cheek and adjusting the orange bandana just so on the impish child. The girl took that as her cue, giving one last bright smile and turning on her heel, racing down the worn pathway to the low meadow before entering the forest's border.

Chi Chi shook her head at the willfulness of youth as a loud bang came to her right where her husband and youngest son cut down another tree further up the ridge near their only water source, a river that rushed between the valley and the forest, its bubbling waves crashing against the silt and rock in slow erosion.

"Be careful, Goku! The last thing I need is for you to injury yourself cutting those down!" She warned loudly over the sound of the rapids in a concerned octave. She couldn't help but fret at her husband's sometimes careless nature, especially so close to the lapping river.

"I'm watching him, Mom." The younger man answered reassuringly, debranching a large oak next to an even larger stack of already dried, cleaned trees, towering 5 feet high and ready for placement. Goku waved a hand in her direction, along with a goofy grin before grasping the ax in his strong hands and hacking the soon-to-be-fallen trunk in a shower of bark fragments.

Chi Chi wiped her hands absentmindedly on her apron, glancing further beyond the two men until her gaze landed on the nearly finished man-made dam, curbing the water's generous flow. The dam would be beneficial with making it easier to maneuver the water to their newly established farm plot etched out of a portion of the virgin forest and adjoining meadow the summer before. It had been hard work for her two boys who labored tirelessly over the autumn and winter months but with her eldest son and daughter-in-law looking for more scholarly careers in the next town over, the burden of agricultural expansion and the dam's creation had been placed on Goku and Goten. Hopefully not too much longer, she sighed, grateful for their perseverance as she watched them both toil for the good of the family.

Chi Chi waited for a moment longer, wondering if they would be getting more rain in the coming days to delay the dam's completion, until an uncomfortable, involuntary shudder ran through her at the swift, brusque wind that clipped at her cheek, kicking up at her skirts, then abruptly dying as quickly as it came, leaving only the sound of a mourning cry in its wake.

She glanced up in alarm at the two men on the hillside who had halted their assault of the ancient forest and heard the unnatural wail across the moor.

* * *

Finding solace in the wood's shadows, Pan clomped through the soft underbrush in her leather-clad shoes with anticipation. The forest held obstacles that she had learned over time to avoid. The unyielding brambles that tugged at her thin cotton dress, stones that were so rough, they tore at the underside of her feet, and the fallen trees, too old to hold themselves up anymore, lying on their enormous sides preventing her passage. These were the trials of the thicket she had to wade through to get to the place she had been to a thousand times before. A relieving smile formed as she knew it was getting closer.

The glade poked through the darkness with its soft invitation in a warm illumination of sunlight and low growing foliage. The birds sang above as if to welcome her as they fluttered around her head, gracefully diving to drink from her favorite place. A glittering lake lay pristine and silent right in the middle, fed by a small stream, it's aqua blue depths untouched by man and adored by a little girl when she had stumbled upon it in her tender years.

She got on her knees by the water's edge, the soft bank giving under her weight. Closing her eyes, she listened to her avian friends call each other and heard the ripple of the water whisper a splash at the far end.

She opened her eyes suddenly when the soft echo of a familiar voice called to her. "Pan."

Nearly falling headfirst into the blue, she clutched her chest dramatically, falling backward onto the pliant earth as her breathing came in spurts. She looked up into equally blue eyes staring back at her black ones, mirthfully grinning with high cheekbones and pouty red lips.

"Bulla, You scared me." Pan chided, calming her racing heart as her stealthy confidant roguishly peered down. Folding her legs gracefully next to Pan as she sat up in a criss-cross position, Bulla chuckled into her hand in a coquettish pitch.

"How can I scare you, Pan. You're so brave and strong." She replied, adjusting a cornflower blue cape over her covered head, a glittering filigree pin with a sapphire stone affixed on her front.

The dark-haired girl smiled lightly, a tint of pink across her nose from the compliment. "Well, I guess I'm not that brave if you manage to scare me almost every time we meet. I should be used to it by now. I still don't know how you show up so quietly."

Pan admired Bulla for her grace, poise and apparent luxury. She envisioned the petit woman of the same age to be of high social status, although they never talked about such things as that was considered rude and improper. However, the verbal restrictions did not halt Pan's curious mind to fantasize about her upbringing and wishing she could share in her friend's good fortune, among other things.

"You're not looking for me, are you?" The blue-eyed girl teased, tilting her head in a side-eye.

"Would it be okay if I was?" Pan asked, suppressing her interest, hoping she didn't seem desperate for attention from someone so fortunate.

"That would match my intentions of coming to this place." Bulla's hushed words forced more heat to rise to Pan's cheeks. It was unfathomable how someone like Bulla could find her worthy of meeting so frequently, if at all.

Pan couldn't help but notice the slow progression of Bulla's thin, unsoiled fingers to her own unclean ones. Her mouth turned up some at her friend's boldness as of late.

Despite the added contact, a gradual forlorn expression formed across Bulla's pale face, her brows coming together in a way that Pan had never seen, creating a knot of concern.

"It pains me to tell you this. I will have to leave soon." She admitted.

Pan could tell right away it wasn't just for a short time. It hurt deep down to consider the thought of her friend, practically her only friend, disappearing from her life.

"Why? Where will you go?" She tried to keep her voice in check. It just wasn't fair. They had been together for years now. Ever since her family had moved to the cottage on the hill when she was little. Bulla was all she knew of the outside world beyond her small village of simple farmers and merchants.

"I'm not sure. It will be soon." Bulla's voice felt far away like she was already this unreachable distance. Even her gaze drifted across the lake in saddened disappointment.

As tears welled up in her eyes, a slim digit hooked with Pan's littlest finger. The gesture of supportive anchor stirred the thrum of warmth across her skin, making itself visible with gooseflesh. She found it more and more difficult to not enjoy the contact.

"I don't want you to leave." She frowned at the thought. The darkness didn't have a chance to last as Bulla's soft frame scooched close enough to lean against her. "I would miss you."

"It hurts my heart to see you this way, cherished one. I would miss you, too." Pan felt more at ease with Bulla's gentle breath on her neck. She sighed in a dreamlike state from either the calm stillness of the glade or the soft pressure of Bulla's head now relaxing on her shoulder, the rest of the digits following suit until her hand was threaded with Bulla's. Her skin was always so pleasant on hers.

A blush bloomed across her face as she felt both lamentation and genuine gratefulness for Bulla's affection, even if it was to be cut short. "You're so good to me, Bulla. Sometimes I feel like you're my only friend. You give me more than anyone ever could."

She heard a small chuckle at her neck and couldn't help the reactionary smile. The birds had seemed to move on from their noisy vigil above them as Pan consciously reveled in the closeness. The rousing of attraction sank straight down to her belly with Bulla's proximity, a feeling she no longer had to hide from her friend. She often wondered if Bulla felt the same.

She smelled of honeysuckle and flax, a scent that carried on the midday breeze across the moor, into the open window of Pan's room, and distracted her often from her daily tasks. Clouding her mind, her favorite earthly perfume swept languidly across all other senses until she had no choice but to resolve her urges by placing a chair against the door to prevent unwanted intrusion and relieving her secret desires under cotton sheets with her hand traveling wantonly into her undergarments.

Pan identified her cherished friend's sobriquet as 'princess of the lake' in her dreams and Bulla called out in teasing whispered affections, hidden by necessity due to the forbidden nature of the desires. Often the dark-haired girl of impoverished background would wonder why the gilded, blue-eyed angel would even give her a second glance, let alone her hand to hold, her ear to listen, her words of encouragement and tacit support.

Pan sighed contentedly against the soft hood of her crown. "Sometimes I think you're not real." She murmured.

She felt the gentle closure of their hands as Bulla lifted her delicate face to Pan, her lips parted in subdued disbelief.

"Is this real?" She asked in a husky cadence before licking her bottom lip and pressing them against Pan's welcoming mouth.

The giddiness she felt every time they kissed only bolstered with each encounter as she held still, captured blissfully between the warning of misbehavior tugging at the back of her mind and the molding of Bulla's perfect mouth on her own. She could hardly breathe, elated that the weight of impending loss was being washed away like an eroding bank against a brimming river after heavy rainfall. She dreaded the end, as her lips pressed fuller in eager demand of physical contact, for when it was over, the burdens returned, the banks dried and hardened, and the lapping, crashing rapids diminishing to a trickling stream until the next wonderful storm.

Pan held on as long as her partner allowed, satiated for the moment up to the point where shame entered her mind, regret for her feelings that most likely were one-sided, and despair in her heart that neither could truly stay this way, lost in a moment within the pristine serenity of the glade. The last inch of skin savored as they broke apart where Pan's eyes refused to leave the curve of shiny red lips before her. Did Bulla like it as much as she did?

Flawless white teeth shone through that mouth in a knowing grin, satisfied that the declaration of doubting her existence had been thoroughly dashed.

"I wish we could stay here forever." Pan declared to the space between their faces. A slim hand not holding her own came up to comb through short black hair.

"This place is special. The woods, the wind, the river. All special." Bulla remarked while briefly pursing her lips and drawing her brows. The smile returned immediately, erasing the expression faster than Pan could register.

Bulla coiled a few strands around her pointer finger. "You could stay if you want." She watched Bulla form the words she would often utter when their time came closer to the end. The pull on her heart reaching out to take those words and make a reality became harder and harder to deny. Yet, their tryst was not meant to be.

"You say that. You know that not possible." Her dark brows came together sullenly. The hand remained entwined in her raven hair as she hushed temptations into Pan's ear.

"What if it was? We could stay here. Together."

"I would if I could." The most honest answer to an unattainable proposition.

She felt the hand at her cheek still and glanced into the blue water of her friend's eyes hard set and yearning. "If it were possible, would you?"

Initially perplexed at the intensity, she responded with commitment. "I would. But-"

"Are you sure?" The tone to her usual dulcet voice came out almost desperate, alluding finality.

A prickling anxiousness at the change to her princess' demeanor bubbled up but fell short of alarm as she gazed into those eyes. She believed in her with trust and comfort. "What are you asking me? To run away?"

"I'm asking you if you could leave your life and be with me, forever, would you?"

The request settled in her mind as she attempted to fathom forever, like the expanse of the daytime skyline or the void of the universe full of stars at night. The safety of her everyday life was assured yet she knew, unless she developed the aptitude of a studious lifestyle like her parents, she would be brought up to live a life much like her grandmother. With low hopes of ever having the drive to be an academic, the latter was in all likelihood her fate. Her heart's call echoed loudly against her chest, radiating outward along her skin and meeting the returned response of the woman in front of her, eyes tuned to her alone.

With the silence of the forest seemingly waiting on her answer, Pan swallowed her trepidation. "Yes."

Taking the palm from against her cheek, Pan kissed the soft heel of Bulla's hand, knowing full well the leap of faith for her was terrifyingly unknown yet she had never felt more assured. Pan's life was culminating in a predictable reality before it truly began. With Bulla, she knew in her heart there was something more. "I want you. I've always only wanted you."

The audible utterance of her most secret and treasured desires formed a shameful hue across her cheeks. She hadn't ever said the words out loud, let alone to the person they were regarding and Pan avoided Bulla's gaze until she felt a tickling trail of fingertips graze up the length of her thin arm to rest at the back of her neck and pull her into another swift kiss.

Feeling completely resolved that she had made the right decision, Pan didn't resist the pull of Bulla's hand to lift her off her knees, to bring her to the water's edge, to wade into its depths without fear or worry. Finding a small foothold, she giggled at the fact that she was fully clothed submerged in the water, watching Bulla's cloak floating carelessly in the small waves they were making.

She hadn't felt this kind of tranquility before and was relishing in the coolness of the lake until her eyeline glanced back over as Bulla unclasped the sapphire brooch and removed her cloak's hood for the first time since they met. Her hair was so blue, it looked as if the lake's color had saturated it to the root and Pan couldn't help but marvel at its unusual yet brilliant shade.

In a daze, she lifted her hand to touch the silken tresses to find Bulla taking her extended hand in hers with a soft smile and a small shake of her head. Mildly embarrassed that she had unwittingly made a mistake, her gaze drifted away to land on the lake's visible depths, the silt and dirt floating to the bottom and clearing the once murky water. A ray of light shone through to the floor causing a white stone to shimmer. Her hand reached out to take it.

As her fingers wrapped carefully around the precious stone, Bulla tilted her head, blue strands of perfect hair distorting the surface tension.

"You like that?" She asked curiously.

"Yes," Pan replied, rubbing the smooth texture with her thumb and eyeing its prismatic facets embedded in the pebble.

"If you take something, you must be willing to give something up in return." She said calmly.

To Pan, it sounded more like a credo yet she brushed it off as teasing. "What would I have to give up for a stone?" She wondered playfully. She failed to notice Bulla's face was devoid of humor.

"Something of yours. Something precious. Perhaps your bandana?"

At the mention of her most prized possession, Pan looked over with confusion as Bulla gazed back unemotive. She'd had the red piece of cloth with her since she was a baby, giving it up would be unthinkable. It meant everything to her.

"I don't think I can." She stressed as gently as she could, for fear of hurting her friend's feelings.

"When something is taken without permission, something should be given back in return. It is the way of things."

Somehow Bulla's hands had made their way onto Pan's face as she looked down at the stone in her palm. "I don't understand." She said with hesitancy.

"Give up your bandana for it." Bulla pressed, her silken words hitting Pan's ear like the first sprinkling of rain, beautiful at first then drowning the mind in noise. She couldn't think clearly. All she knew was Bulla's body wading close, the kiss to her ear transfixing, the repetition becoming harder to resist.

"Okay," Pan said finally, removing the connection to her family and placing it on the low bank among the moss in a wet heap.

She suddenly felt more weightless, as if the water was being absorbed into her cells without bursting, adjusting her buoyancy and extending outward across the pool. The smirk that traced Bulla's lips was the only solace in Pan's mind when the alarms began ringing. She felt she needed to leave immediately yet was unable to move her arms. Her eyes widened, witnessing the being before her no longer carrying the porcelain skin of a young adolescent. Above the water's surface were shimmering shoulders and arms of the lightest blue to dark depths. Her eyes swam in a watercolor mixture of shades like the lake itself. Pan held tight to the stone, the only thing physical she could feel beyond the lake. She tried to move. She tried to blink. She felt nothing. Only fear.

Bulla took her face in her translucent fingers, placed a hollow kiss on her lips then took her shoulders firmly.

"Don't be afraid. I think you're going to like it here." Was the last thing Pan heard escape that mouth she loved as she was pushed gently under the surface.

* * *

Goten rubbed his tired eyes, mashing the lids into his corneas until it took a few moments for his vision to come back. Another day, another job around the house as he rose at nearly dawn like he did every morning to distract himself from the family's troubles. The farm was flush with vegetables for summer harvest with more yield than they had even expected, making the trips to town generously profitable. The proceeds went toward fixing up the little cottage, purchasing other items and food for his mother to pretend to enjoy, and even some new furniture and fixtures around the inside. A modest attempt at luxury for the little family of 3.

As he got dressed in his daily work clothes and putting on the cracked leather boots, he noticed his father had left early, a recently developed practice he had discovered was his father's way of avoiding the truth or facing his wife. Goten frowned in despondency and went in search of his mother who he knew was probably awake.

Making his way to the kitchen, Goten's eyes flitted over the shrine, devoid of dust from Chi Chi's constant cleaning of any remnant that could mare the hallowed altar of candles burning eternally, fresh wildflowers placed in a crystal vase and a single photograph of a smiling girl with an orange bandana. He didn't have the effort today to remove the wilting petals dropped on the surface of the small end table. His mother would do it without complaint.

Finding her in the kitchen at the newly purchased white oak dining table, a cup of cold tea in one hand, he kissed her pale cheek with a halfhearted good morning. He pursed his lips seeing the cup was still full.

"How are you today, Mom?" He asked like he did every morning, even before the incident.

He remembered the wind that day. It was suddenly still. He recalled not needing the jacket around late afternoon, the wind had died completely which he found a little odd as the breeze was the only way to cool him while working. He remarked in passing to his father as his mother climbed the switchgrass cover hill, hiking her skirts, to meet them. She beamed in telling them Gohan and Videl were coming home. For one night. They were coming home.

But when they showed, Pan didn't. Fraught with city worry, Chi Chi explained to Videl it was normal. She did it all the time. There was still concern. The boys trekked out into the forest where she was last seen the next morning.

Gohan was the first to find it. The bandana. At the edge of a dying pool of water. Goten wasn't close when he heard the shout. He wasn't close when he heard the splash. He had made it through the bramble to see his brother, tears streaming down his face when he emerged from the muddy pit, clutching the red fabric in his tight fists, shook his head and said no body.

Goten remembered the crying. There was hope for so long. Long after the crying stopped, there was always hope.

The shrine was put up a week later. Eventually, Gohan and Videl went home. Pan didn't.

"Mom," he asked again, noting her eyes had lost their luster, dispirited by the unimaginable. "How are you today?"

"How do you think I am?" She answered in nothing higher than a murmur.

He exhaled through his nose, wanting to help but not knowing how. "It's been six months." He said into the space between them, waiting for some kind of reaction.

"I know she'll come back. I can feel it." She often said that, too. Her routine began again as she got up from the chair to the stove. "I'm going to make her favorite food." She declared like a mantra. He wished more than anything for the smell to bring her home.

Drawing his brows together in defeat, he left the cottage without further conversation, hoisted an ax over one broad shoulder and made his way to the dam that had loosened some ill-placed logs due to high winds and heavy rainfall.

The meadow yawned out like a plush blanket, the leaves of summer foliage extended fully to take advantage of the longer days. Goten walked up to inspect the damage, looking around and sighing at the absence of his father lately.

With the ax placed against a post planted in the earth to hold back the logs at the front of the structure, he watched the sweeping waters cascade over the wood with an occasional leaf sailing to an unknown destination. She loved the river and the forest. A repressed whimper shook his body for a moment and he went down to one knee, stinging wetness collecting at his eyes. The shimmer along the surface was soothing and he forced his mind to wander from her memory until another shimmer, brighter than the small waterfall, caught his curious eye. He rubbed the salt from his wet gaze on the back of his hand.

He glanced up to the insistent flickering within the shadow of the trees just across the river, temporarily blinding him to squint. In an instant, the flicker stopped and his gaze set on a figure. No. A woman. Outlined along the treeline in pale blue. The glitter at her chest began again but he was more transfixed on her face, oval with red lips and clearly visible hard-set eyes poised on him in an expressionless stare. The sounds around him had silenced as her unusual blue eyes bore into him.

The glint at her chest became too great as a reflected beam caught him right in the eye, he had blink hard. The girl was gone. As he considered if the grief was driving him to see apparitions, he shivered involuntarily as a rough wind bit at the back of his neck with prickling disturbance.


End file.
